01/03/2024
👏🙂
They say you reap what you sow.
So, I stopped for a moment and took a look around.
In my training of horses, I was sowing seeds of stress, ones that would blossom into entire thickets of chronic anxiety.
And in that moment, I was stunned by the emotions my actions were harvesting in horses.
My goal was to have relaxed and well behaved horses who enjoyed their jobs and I was failing at doing so by pushing them to “work through it.”
When they tried to communicate their stress, I would make them work harder until they stopped that communication entirely.
Tired, sweaty, panting and foaming with sweat, their training session would then end.
How was I to expect that they would enjoy such a thing?
It all seems so silly now.
But, in a way, it was a gift that despite the way I tried to silence and extinguish communication when the communication was what I didn’t want to hear, my horses kept trying to communicate.
They hadn’t given up on the hope of me finally listening to them.
And while the persistence of these unwanted behaviours were upsetting my goals as a trainer, it was a sign my horses still believed in my ability to finally hear them.
They hadn’t shut down yet.
So now, I thank them for their perseverance.
For getting louder and refusing to let me drown out their voices.
Because, eventually something did click and I realized that I wasn’t heading to the destination along the route I wanted to.
It was no enjoyable journey of only one half of us was having a good time, while the other was so miserable.
To be honest, I question whether I was even having a good time most of the time.
Frustration, anger and anxiety that were common emotions for me during and after training are no longer ever present.
In helping to heal the damage I had done to my relationship with horses, I was healing myself in the process.
